Sunday, April 13, 2008

Baby Dedication


In our faith tradition a baby dedication is a time where Jeremy and I commit to raising our child in the Christian faith, the church commits to supporting us in that endeavor and the pastor prays a prayer of blessing on the child. That's what we did today.

Dad talked about how it is important to pass on the stories of faith to our children and then he told the story (creation, sin, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, kings, Jesus, resurrection, etc.) to us and pointed out where King Josiah fit in the Biblical timeline.

While I was pregnant I prayed that the child I was carrying would be a leader, choose to follow Christ, be a soulwinner, and have a joy and passion for living. Late in my pregnancy we chose the name Josiah which means fire of the Lord. Before we settled on the name we looked up what role King Josiah played in history (we didn't want to name our child after an evil king!) This is what we found.... (an excerpt from The Student Bible)

Judah's slide to destruction was interrupted by the amazing rule of its alltime best king. Josiah came to the throne at age eight, but received good counsel from the high priest. In 31 years he carried out the most extensive religious reforms Judah had ever seen. He removed and destroyed the altars, idols, and symbols of ungodly worship from the temple, and destroyed pagan centers throughout the land. In a thrilling sequence of events, he oversaw the rediscovery of the Law of Moses and acted immediately on what it taught. No king equals Josiah for his sincere and devout practices.

Pastor Dad's blessing on Josiah was 2 Kings 22: 2 "He (King Josiah) did what was right in the eyes of the Lord...not turning aside to the right or to the left."

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